More pupils leave schools when they become sponsored academies than when they are under local authority control, a new report has shown. Researchers at Education Datalab analysed up to three years of data for 149 schools. Among those that became sponsored academies in 2010-11, the rate of pupils leaving – to other schools, alternative provision, exclusions or from the education system entirely – rose from 4.8 per cent before academisation to 5.4 per cent afterwards. That rise was steeper in 2011-12, with pupils leaving at an average rate of 6.4 per cent after academisation, up from 5.1 per cent. “No such trend was apparent for converter academies,” the report says. Education experts say the findings show the effect of “perverse incentives” placed on schools to prove that academy sponsorship is boosting outcomes. Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said the data pointed to the “pernicious effect of high stakes, short-term, data-driven accountability”. Most pupils who left a secondary school did so in the first three years, the report suggested, while a previous Education Datalab report has shown that pupils who received free school meals were also more likely to move and less likely to…http://schoolsweek.co.uk/sponsored-academies-lose-more-pupils-after-takeovers/